Conceptualizing team coaching: from origin to evolution

Objective: Teams play a crucial role in the effectiveness of organizations. In recent years, the focus of learning and development has shifted from solely emphasizing individual growth to enhancing the learning and development of entire teams, ultimately increasing their effectiveness. This shift has resulted in extensive literature examining various team learning and development interventions, Team coaching is a management practice designed to help team members work more effectively together. However, it is still a poorly defined and conceptualized phenomenon that exists at the intersection of interventions and team development. The growing body of literature on team coaching makes it necessary to conduct bibliometric analyses to summarize the field. The purpose of this research is to examine the scientific contributions related to team coaching.

Method: This research is a descriptive and applied study that employed bibliometric methods. The Scopus database was utilized to collect data from 65 scientific documents published between 2005 and 2024. For visualization purposes, VOSviewer and R software were employed. The study provides descriptive information regarding various factors, such as the number of published articles and associated subject areas, utilizing both co-authorship and co-occurrence methods. Additionally, it identifies key indicators of team coaching based on keywords identified in the previous stage. The significance of each indicator was assessed through a questionnaire and a Likert scale, along with insights from a group of 16 experts.

Results: The application of team coaching has been developed across various subject areas, particularly within the fields of business. The most influential countries in this domain are America, England, and Germany. Since 2017, there has been a steady increase in scientific publications on team coaching, with the highest number recorded in 2022. The most cited article is Hackman and Wagman’s (2005) titled "Team Coaching Theory”. Through bibliometric analyses, a set of keywords has been identified that reflects the key themes in team coaching. These include leadership, teamwork, mentoring, collaboration, awareness, alertness, learning, team innovation, team building, well-being, skill, motivation, employee experience, decision-making errors, individual coaching, competence, coaching functions, beliefs, group dynamics, procedures, process evaluation, and goals. Additionally, team coaching indicators derived from these keywords can be grouped into four categories: 1. Characteristics and Skills of the Coach: communication development, conflict management, possessing adequate knowledge and skills, questioning and awareness enhancement skills, facilitation skills, intellectual maturity, a spirit of learning and development, listening skills, diagnostic and analytical skills, targeted interviewing, personal counseling, environmental analysis, and adopting a systemic perspective; 2. Characteristics of the Coachees: an appropriate team structure, psychological safety, aligning team performance with organizational needs, members' knowledge and skills, commitment and responsibility, the use of effective work strategies, a positive team atmosphere, openness to others' opinions, and mutual trust among members; 3. Team Coaching Actions: improving performance, clarifying performance goals and expectations, analyzing performance, providing feedback, transferring knowledge, questioning and raising awareness, motivating progress and development, identifying and utilizing talents, increasing employee commitment, supporting employees when needed, fostering constructive relationships, and managing conflicts; 4. Goals and Outcomes: enhancing self-awareness, boosting awareness, improving knowledge and skills, elevating performance, increasing commitment and effort, fostering team cooperation and coordination, enhancing communication, improving team effectiveness. After assessing the components of team coaching, it was found that the highest importance score was associated with psychological safety, while the lowest score was related to defining goals and performance expectations.

Conclusion: Team coaching is an interdisciplinary approach that has seen a significant upward trend in scientific research. Currently, no document in Iran has been indexed in Scopus specifically focused on team coaching. Based on this, it is recommended to prioritize research in this area, which could enhance the development of organizational resources across various industries. Team coaching is an activity centered around teamwork and team learning, led by a team leader to improve both individual and team performance. This process may also involve an external coach who collaborates with a group of managers or employees within a team. The team coaching process helps teams align around a common goal, create an inspiring vision, and build healthy relationships within the team. It involves defining roles, fostering accountability for both behaviors and outcomes, and making constructive decisions that align with team and organizational objectives. Overall, team coaching accelerates team performance and serves as a valuable tool for enabling individuals to work together more effectively to achieve shared goals in the workplace. As a result, teams across different industries can attain higher performance outcomes by leveraging the benefits of team coaching.

Keywords: development, Learning, Leadership, performance, Group